Yesterday, while the world’s leaders gathered in France under grey skies to honor World War I’s fallen heroes, a sleeper cell of easily triggered social justice warriors was activated in BeachGrit‘s Instagram account and delivered a staggering rout.

At issue was a photo taken from the cult classic film Surf Nazis Must Die. The girl wore a swastika on her cheek and declared that she needed a vacation.

Fury raged in the comments with follower after follower declaring they would unfollow while shaming BeachGrit for being thoughtless, rude and terrible and then, like that, Instagram swung in and vanished the post like it never existed, leaving only a cryptic message in its place.

We removed your post because it doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines on violence or threat of violence. If you violate our guidelines again, your account may be restricted or disabled.

We want to keep Instagram a safe place for everyone, and we created these guidelines to support and protect our diverse community on Instagram.

We remove photos or videos of extreme graphic violence.

we remove oats that encourage violence or attacks on anyone based on their religious, ethnic or sexual background.

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From the heart-an-empty-hole Department: Surfline plays the role of Mr. Grinch this holiday season!

This morning arch-conservative (in its political leanings not wave measurements) surf forecasting website Surfline delivered its Christmas calculation and it is very bah humbug if you are the sort that craves big waves and/or craves watching big waves.

Are you that sort? Are you like the World Surf League President-elect of Content, Media and WSL Studios who is in Fiji right now (I think) at #kalamakamp surfing the monster waves of his young life?

“It’s a really tough very long range/winter forecast in the North Pacific, in what has been a peculiar past five to six years. As mentioned above, weak to moderate El Nino’s are all over the place in terms of North Pacific surf (and West Coast precipitation). Add the anomalously warm water in the Gulf of Alaska and it doesn’t make me feel great about our surf on the West Coast this winter (especially Southern California).”

“If I had to give a prediction, I would say first and foremost, it’s very low confidence — Southern California will be below average for surf size, we’ll probably see warmer than average air temps, and more days than normal of light wind/clean conditions. Northern California may also see smaller than normal surf and below average number of XXL days…”

We are apparently in a weak El Nino and this of course means no big waves for you and it also means no big waves for John John Florence and Kelly Slater at the just-around-the-corner Billabong Pipeline Pro in Honor of Andy Irons.

Bloody but unbowed: Western Australian bodyboarder “stomps on shark!”

It’s almost summer in the southern hemisphere. And in Australia, that means shark season. Hello you fragile, dreamlike creatures.

The count so far. Three attacks in the same harbour in the Whitsundays, one fatal, and, yesterday, a bodyboarder was hit with “traumatic leg injuries” while surfing at Mandurah, one-and-a-half hours south of Perth.

‘Super sharky vibes’ before attack, says WA surfer Noah Symmans. The West Australian surfer who was attacked by a shark yesterday morning said he “stomped” the animal until it let go of his leg.

Noah, 20, was surfing with a friend at Pyramids Beach, south of Perth, when he felt a shark biting his calf at around 8.40am.

“I was surfing with another mate at a known break in Mandurah and it was fairly eerie vibes, a couple salmon were about and it was overcast,” he said.

“We were mid conversation waiting in the line-up when I felt something grab my left leg and try and pull me under, so with my other leg I stomped the shark until it released me and we gunned it for the rocks.”

Mr Symmans was flown via helicopter to hospital after being treated at the scene by lifeguards and paramedics.

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I spend a good 50% of each day laughing at The Inertia and Stab. Maybe not 50% but at least 5%. I laugh at the safe space, big tent, quick-to-apologize-with-tears-in-eyes-but-slow-to-ever-do-anything-even-remotely-meaningful of The Inertia. I laugh at the trying-super-hard-to-be-edgy-but-constantly-missing-the-mark-because-it-takes-a-little-spine-to-actually-be-edgy of Stab.

I laugh mostly looking at their social medias. Both The Inertia and Stab grew in the digital age where robust followings could be bought/built and those numbers sold to advertisers. It’s a nice model, if you launched forever ago/have money, but there is so much strange hurt feelings and misunderstandings in robust social media followings and these regularly spill into the comments on Facebook or Instagram.

I look and laugh and think, “It’s a good thing we never had money to build a robust social media following. Who needs that sort of headache?” I assumed that those who followed BeachGrit came organically and were in on the joke or at least understood the joke.

That assumption was shattered this morning. Apparently our Instagram account is a sleeper cell of easily triggered social justice warriors even more full-throated than any that populate The Inertia or Stab.

I posted a little ditty about Surf Snowdonia building a Nazi-esque hotel that was causing some consternation when I woke up and advertised the story on our Instagram with a little screen grab from the cult classic Surf Nazis Must Die then went about my business.

When I checked in a few hours later, though, all hell had broken loose. Message after message declaring:

cassellpeter You have 109K followers and you post someone with a Nazi symbol? Irresponsible. You’ve lost a follower. Thought you were better.

d1242w Go fuck yourself you fucking white boy racist.

kbskaleidoscope This is so disrespectful. You’ve lost my follow.

lalhavali This symbol should not be used . That’s not funny!

k8beauchene WTF?!

sllewhsa On remembrance day, really?

danielvaie Hate this picture😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡SHAME SHAME STUPID STUPID

hindiana530 Whoops…this was an awkward post

noprogress 😮

ralphteriitaohia Bulshit 😢😠

dr_portugez_4_ 👎👎👎

jcvsolari Unfollow!!

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Now I know how those boys at The Inertia and Stab feel. They feel good! Triggering the easily triggered is like riding a good rollercoaster. All the thrill, none of the danger. I now wish BeachGrit had a robust social media following but it appears everyone unfollowed.

Maybe next year!

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Controversy: Surf Snowdonia at odds with National Park over “Nazi hotel for dumb surfers!”

Imagine you are Surf Snowdonia, the very first of the next generation wave pools. You swung wide your gates and let the world in almost four-years-ago. An eternity before Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, a lifetime before Waco’s Cable Park and Australia’s Surf Lakes.

You were the crowning achievement. The kick-off. You made people see the possibilities but does the surf universe care? Does the surf universe even know you are still around?

No. You are a relic. You are the Apple II so what do you do?

Build a hotel, activity center (centre) and zipline, of course.

Yes, the owners of the pool there in bucolic Wales have planned for an expansion but it is being objected to by nearby Snowdonia National and let us turn to the BBC in order to understand why.

Community councillors in Dolgarrog back the £10m plans at the artificial lake, sited on a former aluminium works.

But opponents, including Snowdonia National Park, fear traffic congestion and the scheme’s visual impact.

Planning officers said concerns about flood risk and contaminated land should also be addressed before Conwy councillors approved any scheme.

A zip wire, over the existing surf lagoon, stretching from the proposed five-storey activity building would also be included, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Snowdonia National Park said it objected because it felt the building design was out of character and that the size and capacity of the scheme was excessive, complaints mirrored by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales.

And there we have it. “Snowdonia National Park said it objected because it felt the building design was out of character and that the size and capacity of the scheme was excessive.”

Let us study the building design.

Very stern, I think. Very Templehof Airport in Berlin which is a classic example of the Nazi style, best described as a stripped-down neoclassicism and/or a utilitarian style for major infrastructure projects and industrial or military complexes.

The size and capacity issue is understandable, I suppose. Would you want lots of dumb surfers coming to your back yard? Dumb surfers staying in a Nazi hotel?